This Goodly Land

Walker Percy (May 28, 1916–May 10, 1990)

Other Names Used

• John Walker Percy: baptismal name

Alabama Connections

• Birmingham, Jefferson County: birthplace, childhood residence, home of father's relatives

Selected Works

• Percy, Walker. The Moviegoer. New York: Knopf, 1961. Rpt. New York: Vintage International, 1998.
• Percy, Walker. The Last Gentleman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. Rpt. New York: Modern Library, 1997.
• Percy, Walker. Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1971. Rpt. New York: Picador USA, 1999.
• Percy, Walker. The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do With the Other. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1975. Rpt. New York: Picador USA, 2000.
• Percy, Walker. The Second Coming. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980. Rpt. New York: Picador USA, 1999.
• Percy, Walker. Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1983. Rpt. New York: Picador USA, 2000.
• Percy, Walker. The Thanatos Syndrome. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1987.
• Percy, Walker. Signposts in a Strange Land. Ed. Patrick Samway. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991.

Literary Awards

• National Book Award, Fiction, National Book Foundation, 1962, for The Moviegoer
• Award in Literature, National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1967
• Inducted as a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1972
• Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Fiction, 1980, for The Second Coming
• Alabama Author Award, Alabama Library Association, 1981, for The Second Coming
• Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Current Interest, 1983, for Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book
• T. S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing, Rockford Institute for the Ingersoll Foundation, 1988

Biographical Information

Walker Percy was born in Birmingham, Ala., to a wealthy family. After his father committed suicide in 1929, his mother moved the family, first to her parents’ home in Athens, Ga., then to Greenville, Miss., to live with a cousin, William Alexander Percy (author of Lanterns on the Levee). After their mother died in an automobile accident two years later, “Uncle Will” adopted Percy and his two younger brothers. One of their neighbors in Greenville was Shelby Foote, with whom Percy established a lifelong friendship. Although Percy began writing in high school for the school newspaper, Uncle Will thought medicine a more suitable career for a Southern gentleman. Percy graduated from the University of North Carolina with a BA in chemistry in 1937 and from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1941. Shortly after starting an internship in pathology at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, Percy was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He spent several years at sanitoriums, resting and reading literature and philosophy.

Percy never again attempted to practice medicine. He was supported financially by a legacy from Uncle Will, which allowed him to pursue other interests. One of those interests was Roman Catholicism. In 1947, Percy moved to New Orleans to receive instruction from the Jesuits at Loyola University and be baptized. He also pursued his earlier interest in writing. Finding New Orleans too distracting, he soon moved to the more rural town of Covington, La. Percy’s first two novels were rejected by publishers. In the 1950s, he began writing essays on philosophy and semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, and publishing them in scholarly journals. In 1957, Percy moved his family back to New Orleans, although they kept a second home in Covington. Percy’s third novel, The Moviegoer, set in New Orleans, was published in 1961 and was quite successful, winning the National Book Award. He continued to write and publish both novels and nonfiction for the rest of his career. A collection of his essays, The Message in the Bottle, was published in 1975. Percy won several awards, including a stipend from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He presented the Eighteenth Jefferson Lecture at the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1989, shortly before his death from prostate cancer.

Interests and Themes

Walker Percy’s novels feature modern protagonists struggling to overcome alienation and emotional malaise. Both his fiction and his nonfiction are influenced by his religious beliefs and his studies of existentialism and semiotics.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Books

• Percy, Walker. Conversations With Walker Percy. Ed. Lewis A. Lawson and Victor A. Kramer. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985.
• Reid, Panthea, ed. The Art of Walker Percy: Stratagems For Being. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
• Samway, Patrick H. Walker Percy: A Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.
• Tharpe, Jac. Walker Percy. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983.
• Tolson, Jay. Pilgrim in the Ruins: A Life of Walker Percy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Reference Web Sites

• "Walker Percy". Mississippi Writers Page. 2004. Department of English, University of Mississippi. http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/percy_walker/index.html.
• "Walker Percy". Bhamwiki. 2007. http://www.bhamwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Walker_Percy.
• Collins, Christina. "Walker Percy". Mississippi Writers & Musicians. 2008. Starkville High School. http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/writers/walker-percy.html.
• Samway, Patrick. "Walker Percy". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. 2008. Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1285.

Location of Papers

• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Photo courtesy of Rhoda K. Faust, Maple Street Book Shop, New Orleans.

Last updated on May 21, 2009.